Just A Little More Harmless Smut
by Save vs. Magic
Summary: In the wake of "Just A Little Harmless Smut", Alex sneaks into Justin's room, determined to learn how he feels about her. The truth she encounters is more than she bargained for, especally given she's not exactly great with the truth to begin with.  JALEX
1. Chapter 1

**SUMMARY**: In the wake of the events of _Just A Little Harmless Smut_, Alex sneaks into Justin's room, determined to learn how he really feels about her. The truth she encounters is more than she bargained for, especally considering she's not exactly great with the whole "truth" thing to begin with. Set early in Season 3, pre-_Wizards Vs. Werewolves_.

**RATING/CONTENT:** M for underage drinking, frank discussions of a sexual nature, and explicit depictions of (vaguely?) consensual sibcest-y shenanigans. (Also, Justin uses the 'm' word once.) Jalex, obviously, with minor Alex/Mason and Justin/Juliet. Fluffy smut/smutty fluff. (Flut? Smuff?)

**DISCLAIMER**: _Wizards of Waverly Place_ and its characters are owned by people who aren't me, who seem to frown on this sort of thing, if the rampant character assasination we saw in Season 4 is any indication. Not that I'm bitter, or anything. Oh well, at least they're done with them, and can't do any further damage to our beloved OTP.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Although the original _Just A Little Harmless Smut_ was written as a stand-alone one-shot, and marked complete, no other fic I've written has received as many story alerts or requests for a continuation. It's been about a year since the first one, so I figure you kind souls have waited more than long enough. Like the original _Harmless Smut_ (and _Doc Day Afternoon_ before it) this is a porn-with-plot (or maybe I should say plot-with-porn) that's heavy on the character development and a long, slow burn...but it does pay off eventually, I promise.

A special note for followers of my ongoing fic, _OTP_: despite the long hiatus between updates, it's not abandoned, I promise. As a few reviewers noted, though, the last few chapters have kind of meandered a bit, and I just felt a need to return to my roots and get this out of my system while I figured out where I want to go next with _OTP_. The good news is that I'm excited about it again, so it will be returning shortly.

* * *

><p>It's four pm on a Tuesday night—because, look, if it's dark enough outside that the street lights have come on, the afternoon is clearly over, OK?—and Alex Russo is bored off her ass as she sits behind the counter of the Sub Station with her chin in her hand, drawing idly in her sketchbook. The diner is deader than disco. Rain pours in sheets down the windows of the empty subway car, matching her mood, as Max and Harper move from one vacant table to another, refilling the napkin holders. Max is talking nonsense as usual, about how cool it would be to have an outfit made completely out of potato skins, or something, while Harper nods and makes careful notes on her order pad. And, for the first time ever, Alex begins to suspect where Harper gets her singularly unique ideas about fashion.<p>

Max Russo, style muse. Christ, now _there's_ a frightening thought.

Hearing the cooler door swing open behind her, Alex turns partway round on her stool, and glances through the pass-through into the kitchen. Her shoulders slump a little as she sees it's only her dad, whistling softly to himself as he takes a quick inventory of their supplies. Scowling at herself, and the odd twinge of disappointment she feels (but can't explain), she shakes her head and goes back to her sketchbook. She's been completely preoccupied with drawing hands the past few days, filling pages and pages with sketches of them in different poses and positions, trying to get them to look natural.

(And if there's any particular significance to that, she's doing her damnedest to ignore it.)

"Hey, where's Justin?" Harper asks, breaking into Alex's thoughts so suddenly that the lead of her mechanical pencil snaps off and skitters off the counter to the floor. Alex raises her eyes to glare at her, then sighs and clicks her thumb twice against the eraser before she lowers them again.

"Probably with Vampire Barbie," she growls into her sketchbook. "He always begs off work when it rains to be with her. And Dad's so cheap, he's only too happy to let him."

"Hey!" Jerry says from the kitchen. "You know I can hear you, right?"

"Why rainy days in particular?" Harper frowns, confused.

"Because overcast sky equals no direct sunlight," Alex replies, without looking up. "Which means they can walk around the city during the day like normal people for a change. Y'know, without having to worry about her turning into a big pile of dust, like the enormous freak she is?"

"Wow, what's with you?" Harper asks. "I thought you liked Juliet."

Alex shrugs noncommittally, pretending to be too absorbed in her sketching to answer the question. Because, really, what's she gonna say? That the thought of her brother huddled under an umbrella with his perky blonde girlfriend, as they skip gleefully from puddle to puddle on the streets of New York, is making her crankier than the worst PMS she's ever experienced? That she's worried they're _not_ out playing _Singing In The Rain_, but instead holed up together somewhere, secretly making love, which makes her sick to her stomach? That, if they _are_ off somewhere doing it, she has nobody to blame but her own goddamn self, since she was the one who—?

The pencil lead snaps again, this time so hard that it shoots across the Sub Station to ricochet off Max's left ear.

"Ow!" Max grimaces at her, reaching up to rub the spot where it pinged him. "Hey, watch it!"

"Whoops," Alex mutters, clicking the eraser again. "My bad."

"That's all you have to say for yourself? That could have gone right into my ear hole! It could have stabbed me in my brain!"

Alex shrugs again. "So? Who'd notice?"

"HEY! That was a hidden dig at me, wasn't it?"

"Oh, would you relax?" Alex sneers. "It just would've passed straight through to the other side, anyway."

Max blinks at this. "Wow, really? Could we try it again, then? 'Cause that'd be really awesome…here, I'll lean closer this time…"

"Or maybe just don't press so hard?" Harper offers helpfully, as she shoves Max over to table nine to top up the sugar dispenser.

"Mmm," Alex murmurs.

"Hey, y'know what else would be cool?" Max says thoughtfully. "Bubble wrap earmuffs. To, like, protect you from stuff getting shot through your ear into your brain? But it also gives you something to do while you're bored waiting for the subway, or whatever…"

"In-n-n-n-nteresting," Harper says, pulling her pen and order pad out of her apron again. "Keep talking, kid…"

Alex rolls her eyes and shakes her head as they continue playing their own demented version of Project Runway, struggling to tune them out and concentrate on her sketching. Because that's how she works things out, whenever words fail her. And seriously, they don't make words for how utterly confused she feels right now…or if they do, then only a hopeless dork like Justin would know them.

"Hey, these are really good, honey!" Jerry says into her ear out of nowhere, making her jump. She fights the urge to glare at him as he lays one hand on her shoulder and peers down at her sketchbook. "I really like this one here. It kinda looks like Spider-Man about to shoot a web, y'know? Thwip thwip?"

But even as her father holds up his free hand to demonstrate, mimicking the pose from her sketchbook, Alex flushes darkly. Because Spider-Man was so not even remotely on her mind when she drew that…

_"Shut up and use two fingers already, dork," she'd told him._

_And Justin had done as she asked, shifting his hand to spread her open with his thumb and baby finger as he slipped his ring finger in to join the middle one already sliding in and out of her, flexing his wrist to rock the heel of his hand against her clit every time he pulled out. She'd let out a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh as she threw her head back against his shoulder and arched her back, her hands momentarily losing their purchase on his shaft, before she dropped herself back down against him and resumed stroking him with a vengeance…_

"You ever think about it?" Jerry asks, interrupting her reverie.

"Huh?" Alex asks, shaking her head sharply, as though trying to jar something loose. "Think about what?"

"Going into comics," Jerry says. "You've definitely got the chops for it, and Marvel and DC are both right here in New York."

"Comics? Oh pfft, as if!" Alex scoffs, surprising herself with how angry she sounds. "Like I'd ever waste my time drawing one of Justin's stupid, geeky funnybooks!"

Her father's eyes tighten a little at the corners, and Alex cringes inwardly, expecting to be scolded for biting his head off. But he just squeezes her shoulder and tilts his head sympathetically to one side. "Bad mood, huh kiddo?"

"A little, yeah," she admits with a heavy sigh. "Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me today."

(Which, y'know, is totally a lie. Fortunately, she's good at those.)

"Is there something you want to talk about?" Jerry asks, concerned. "Because if it's, uh, girl stuff, I can always go get your mom…"

"Nonono!" Alex says, a little too quickly, then forces herself to smile sweetly at him. "I mean, thanks, but no. I'm just feeling a little…off, y'know? The weather, I guess."

"Don't worry about it," Jerry smiles, patting her on the back. "Listen, why don't you get outta here, huh? Take the afternoon off, go watch TV or listen to some music, or something."

Alex's eyes widen in surprise at this sudden, uncharacteristic willingness to let her shirk responsibility, barely ten minutes into her shift. "Yeah? Really?"

Jerry nods and jerks his chin at the empty Sub Station. "I'm pretty sure that Harper, Max and I can handle the crowd. We'll call you back down if the dinner rush gets bad. Go on."

"Hey, you don't have to tell me three times!" Alex hurriedly unties her apron, tosses it under the counter before her father can change his mind, and gathers her sketchbook and art supplies into her arms. This time, the grin she favors her father with is completely genuine, as she stands on tip toe to kiss him on the cheek. "Thanks, Daddy."

"No problem, princess," he grins back.

Alex spins and sprints for the black spiral staircase that leads up into the loft, her dark pony tail whipping through the air behind her, reflecting that maybe her old man isn't as out of touch as he so often seems, after all. She gets about halfway up before a sudden thought occurs to her, stopping her in her tracks. Leaning over the railing, she narrows her eyes at Jerry.

"Dad, you're not just letting me go early because it's dead, and you don't want to have to pay me for today, are you?"

Jerry's face takes on a wounded expression. "Not at all, sweetheart."

"Uh-huh. But just so we're clear, I'm _not_ getting paid for today, am I?"

Jerry blinks at her as though she's speaking a foreign language. "Oh, _heck_ no."

"Yeah," Alex sighs, as she trudges the rest of the way up the stairs, "that's what I thought."


	2. Chapter 2

Despite being turned loose, with an entire afternoon of parentally-sanctioned freedom ahead of her, Alex's mood doesn't improve once she's reached the loft. Instead, she finds herself puttering around, completely at loose ends. She briefly toys with the idea of making some Texan popcorn—hot sauce and pickle juice mixed into a bag of Orville Reddenbocker's finest microwave fare—and flopping down on the couch to watch a few PVR'd episodes of _Jersey Shore_, with the sound turned up way too high. But the idea quickly loses its appeal when she remembers that Justin isn't around to be outraged by it. (Which, duh, is half the point of even watching _Jersey Shore_.) Besides, the couch is to be avoided at all costs right now, as unsafe territory. Kind of like the Romulan Neutral Zone.

(And, oh Christ…she's not entirely sure, but was that a _Star Trek_ reference she just made, there? Seriously? Ugh. God, is terminal nerdiness an STD, or what?)

Normally, whenever she's feeling like this, she disappears to the tunnel and puts in a few hours on whatever masterpiece of urban art she's working on at the moment, losing herself in painting and mindless banter with Link, or whoever else happens to be around. One look out the window puts the kibosh on that idea, though. The rain is coming down so hard it's practically travelling horizontally, which means the tunnel's likely to be flooded for a couple days, at least.

Usually a decent tunnel-flood is something she looks forward to. It's always interesting to walk down there a few days after a good, hard rainstorm to see which pieces have survived and which ones have been washed away, then watch as their artists either painstakingly recreate them, or choose to start from scratch with something fresh. It's kind of a testament to the spirit of New York itself, the way the city is constantly changing and renewing itself, or whatever.

Today, though? She just finds it annoying. It's almost as though Mother Nature herself were conspiring against her. Which, given Alex's history with the moody little bitch, she wouldn't entirely put past her.

(And yeah, she totally gets the irony of her calling somebody else a moody bitch at this particular moment in time. It's intentional, OK?)

Eventually, after a brief pit stop in the fridge for a bottle of water and some sliced pickles, she finds herself up in her room, sitting on her bed with her sketchbook open in her lap and her iPod turned up full blast. She sets it on shuffle, then immediately regrets it as a shmoopy Taylor Swift love song starts to play. _Hey Stephen_ gets skipped with extreme prejudice—because, seriously, why the hell did she even download that?—as do the Black Eyed Peas (so overplayed), the Violent Femmes (eh, not right now) and Ke$ha. (Wow, really? That one's still on there? Jesus, she really needs to take a good, long look at her playlist, one of these days.) Grunting in frustration, she gives up on shuffle entirely, and switches over to Fefe Dobson—_Sunday Love_, the unreleased album, the one she had to beg Justin to titBorrent for her, or whatever—because pissed-off girl rock is exactly what she needs right now. (Even if, y'know, she doesn't entirely get why.)

Flipping to a blank page as the bassline from _As A Blonde_ starts pounding in her head, Alex picks up a piece of charcoal and sets down a few tentative lines, not quite sure what she's drawing just yet. Not hands this time, that's for damn sure. She's sick to death of drawing hands, of obsessing over them. Of where they've been, and what they've done. His. Hers. Theirs. It's all she's thought about for four days, and she's frickin' done.

(Well, OK, so if she's honest with herself, that's not all she's thought about…)

_"I've always believed that there's a world of difference between having sex and making love," he'd said after he'd kissed her, squeezing her hand._

_Alex had blinked, her mouth hesitantly working open and closed a few times as she struggled to put words to what she was thinking, and failed miserably. Because, dude, there just weren't any. Justin's grin had only widened as he realized that, for possibly the first time in their short lives, he was literally seeing her struck speechless, and loving it. He'd leaned forward again to peck her gently on the forehead, then jumped up off the couch. The porn flick that had been playing in the background, forgotten, finally faded to black, bow-chikka-bow-bow music swelling while the credits started to roll. Justin hadn't even glanced at it as he padded towards the stairs in his bare feet, naked from the waist down, intent on retrieving his underwear and the lost remote from the floor of the Sub Station below._

_Watching her brother from the couch as he strode away from her, her eyes drawn to the tight curve of his bare ass cheeks, flexing beneath the fluttering hem of his commemorative Captain Jim Bob Sherwood T-shirt, Alex had reached up to brush her fingertips against her lower lip. And she'd smiled._

Of course, she'd been bombed out of her goddamned skull at the time—they both had, otherwise you can bet your ass that it would never have happened in the first place—and by the time he'd come back, she'd been passed out on the couch. Or, at least, that's what she assumed, since the next thing she remembered was waking up hungover in her own bed the next morning (well, afternoon…OK, late afternoon), dressed in a white sleep cami and her Tinkerbell pajama bottoms, with last night's makeup having already been mysteriously scrubbed off her face. And even though her head had felt like it might spontaneously explode at any given moment, and her stomach was threatening to eject everything she'd ever eaten since second grade, she'd never felt so loved and cared for.

(Which, of course, made her even _more_ nauseous. Because, dude, Alex Russo? Shyeah, so not the kind of chick who needs some dude to take care of her. Or, y'know, likes the idea of it, or anything. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not even.)

The guitar solo at the end of _As a Blonde_ trails off, leading into the gentle synth riff that opens _Don't Let It Go To Your Head_. And Alex's hand pauses mid-charcoal-stroke as the first few lines of the song collide head-on with her memory of the kiss, so hard that she can practically feel every synapse in her brain seizing as they screech to a halt.

_So what if I came clean_  
><em>And told you all you mean to me<em>  
><em>So what if I meant every word I said<em>  
><em>Baby, don't let it go to your head<em>

Alex scowls at her iPod, irrational anger bubbling up inside her. The urge to pick it up, rip the earbuds from her ears, and whip it across the room as hard as she can is nearly irresistible. But no, she refuses to give in to it, won't even allow herself to skip to the next song. Because that would be, like, giving in or letting it get the better of her, or whatever. And when it comes to a battle of wills, Alex Russo simply does not lose, not even to herself. Gritting her teeth, tightening her grip on the charcoal, she takes a deep breath and resolves to just let the song play out, like it doesn't mean anything.

(Because it totally doesnt. Not a goddamned thing)

_So what if I write your name_  
><em>'Cause you're always on my brain<em>  
><em>In a heart, I paint a crimson red<em>  
><em>Baby, don't let it go to your head<em>

Shaking her head, Alex presses the charcoal back against the page, ignoring the song, fighting to get her head back to where it was when she'd started sketching. She lightly traces back over the last few lines, a subtle reverse-S curving exaggeratedly right-of-centre. Softly feminine, graceful, yet fraught with tension, like..

...she threw her head back against his shoulder and arched her back, her hands momentarily losing their purchase on his shaft...

"Oh, fuck me!" Alex groans, throwing her pad down against the bed in disgust, then flushes deeply, immediately regretting her choice of words. Wrenching her eyes shut, she reaches up and presses the heels of her hands into them, making flashes of color explode in the blackness behind her eyelids. The crunchy guitar assaults her eardrums as it ramps up to back the chorus.

_Just cause I can't go on_  
><em>Just cause I die when you're gone<em>  
><em>Just cause I think of you in bed<em>  
><em>Don't let it go to your head<em>

_If I looked in your eyes_  
><em>One, two, too many times<em>  
><em>And memorized every word you said<em>  
><em>Don't let it go to your head<em>

Alex lets out a ragged breath, drops her hands and looks sullenly back down at her sketchpad. All anyone else would see is a few seemingly random squiggles, without form or function. But in her mind's eye, Alex fills in all the missing details, the lines she hadn't set down yet—but would have—and it's undeniable what she's looking at.

Shit. This is so much worse than the hands.

_So what if I want to kiss_  
><em>From your toes up to your lips<em>  
><em>It don't mean that you've had me yet<em>  
><em>You're gonna be good, I bet<em>

"OK, enough," Alex snaps, as much to herself as to Fefe Dobson, as she grabs the thin wires to each side of her face and yanks her earbuds out. She glances up across the room, and finds her own reflection glaring back at her, from the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. "Seriously, Alex, this is nuts. You need to stop obsessing and get a frickin' grip, here."

She winces then, once again regretting her choice of phrase—because, hi, getting a frickin' grip was how she wound up in this mess in the first goddamned place—and her reflection winces right back at her in response.

"Ugh, stop looking at me like that," she growls. "Look, it was just a little harmless smut. You were drunk, you were horny, and you used each other. That's all. End of story. Yeah, it was all kinds of fucked up...and OK, maybe that made it sorta hot...but it didn't mean anything, all right? And it's sure as shit never gonna happen again! Got it?"

Alex lets out a shuddering breath. Great. So now she's arguing with herself. Out loud. Like Grandma, except not in Spanish. Jesus Christ, she really _is_ losing it. And even worse, it looks like Mirror!Alex isn't even remotely convinced, anyway.

Yeah, can't really blame her, there. Listening to herself, Alex wouldn't be, either.

(Especially not when she knows just how damp she's felt over the past few days, and how little the constant rain has had to do with it...)

"Ugh!" she grunts, jumping up off the bed and turning her back to the mirror, unable to stand gawking at herself any longer. Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she finds herself glowering at the wall behind her bed, the one that seperates her room from Justin's. Seething with anger at him, at herself, at this whole stupid situation. But, y'know, mostly at him, if only on general priniciple.

Because, c'mon, neurotically obsessing over crap like this? That's his deal, not hers. And yet off he's gone, God knows where, doing God only knows what, with goddamned Vampire Barbie. Like what happened between them is no big friggin' deal. Which is supposed to be her move, dammit. She'ssupposed to be the carefree, irresponsible, happy-go-lucky one, not him. What the hell, was touching her brother's junk a one-way ticket to Bizarro World?

(Guh, was that _another_ nerd reference? Dude, seriously...he's given her geek cooties, she's sure of it.)

Scowling at the wall, Alex shakes her head angrily. No, screw that. Screw. That. There is no way that the Justin Vincenze Pepe Russo she knows and lo—uh, knows—just brushes off something as monumentally wrong as what they did. No frickin' way. And if it's had this much of an effect on her, then he's probably on the verge of giving himself the mother of all aneurisms over it. Because she refuses to believe that Captain Jim Bob Sherwood Jr. is actually capable of holding it together better than she is in the face of something like this.

And what's more? She is goddamn well gonna prove it.

Knowing from past experience that Justin has his bedroom door magically warded against intrusion six ways from Sunday—specifically against her, which is where the past experience comes in—Alex snatches her wand off her night stand as she impulsively jumps up onto the bed. Leveling the wand's tip at the wall, she twists it in a tight circle with a flick of her wrist.

_"Go through, mow through,"_ she mutters, the end of her wand flaring bright yellow in response.

The pink, furry wallpaper that lines her room seems to stand up on end like the hair of a frightened cat as the spell takes hold. Alex gives it a count of five to settle. Then, jaw set in determination, she marches forward off the end of the bed, and effortlessly walks straight through the wall into Justin's room beyond, slipping into it easier than a hot knife through butter.

(Or than Justin's fingers into her wet and ready pussy, she absolutely doesn't think.)

(Nope. Doesn't even occur to her.)

(Not even a little bit.)

(Augh.)


	3. Chapter 3

So if the couch is the neutral zone, then _this_ is enemy territory.

A faint electric tingle washes over Alex's skin as she pushes through the wall into Justin's bedroom, and steps all over the _Star Wars_ bedspread laid across his crisply-made bed. Glaring down at the expertly-folded hospital corners, she almost gives into the impulse to jump up and down all over it—which she knows would drive him batshit crazy—but restrains herself. She's here on a stealth mission, after all. She has bigger fish to fry. Instead, stepping carefully across to the end of the bed, she aims her wand at the carpet in the center of the room.

_"Whatever wards are on the floor,"_ she intones, _"undo 'em so they ain't no more."_

The tip of Alex's wand glows greenish-blue this time, and it's as though the floor of her brother's room is the surface of a still pond, and her spell a tiny pebble cast into it. Eldritch energy ripples from the center outward in concentric circles as whatever security spells he's cast upon it are neutralized. Only once the last of the ripples has faded against the baseboard in the farthest corner of the room does Alex finally hop down off the bed.

"Alright, that's outta the way," she murmurs to herself, as she hitches one knee up to her chest to holster her wand in her boot. "Now what, Alex?"

It's not a bad question. In fact, it's a very good one. Because forethought has never exactly been Alex Russo's strong suit, and she isn't entirely sure what it is she's supposed to be looking for, exactly. Yeah, she's here to find some kind of proof that Justin's world has been rocked by their drunken little sprint to third base the other night as much as hers has. She just doesn't have clue one about what form that proof might actually take, is all. Alex has her sketchbook to vent her emotions into when she's confused, but what does Justin have? Would he build some kind of android shrink to psychoanalyze him? Rearrange his action figures into some kind of tableau of conflicted morals and forbidden lo—er, lust?

A quick look around the bedroom answers both questions for her pretty quickly: nope, and um, nope. There don't appear to be any robotic works-in-progress anywhere. And all his little dolls on display are still factory-sealed and carefully preserved in their original, mint-condition packaging. Alex frowns to herself as she begins pacing around, idly picking up items and considering them for inclusion in her Box of _Justin's Favorite Things From His Room_, while she searches for clues.

It's a pretty quick search, and it comes up with bupkis. Justin's room is so spartan that even one of those oily dudes from '_300_' would look around and wonder if anybody actually lives in it—because, y'know, they're Spartans, get it?—and so perfectly neat that it might as well be a picture from the _Dork Lifestyles_ section of the Ikea catalogue. There isn't a single thing out of place that stands out. She'd have better luck trying to find a clue in Max's room, and the last time she was in there, it took her ten minutes and a geo-location spell just to find his bed so she could wake him up for school.

Alex sighs heavily as she sits down against the edge of Justin's desk, and shakes her head. Yeah, so this is a waste of time. Clearly, cartoons have led her astray again, because this whole clue-finding deal isn't nearly as easy as they've made it out to be. Where the frig are Dora and Boots when you really need them? Hell, she'd even take Shaggy and Scooby-Doo right about now, and those two idiot burnouts never find anything. Usually all they manage to do is to get stumbled upon by the bad guy, then run and hide from him for most of the episode, while everybody else does all the—

Alex breaks off mid-thought, her head coming up sharply as she looks towards the door. Waitasecond, are those footsteps she hears coming up the staircase? Justin's footsteps?

Ruh-roh, Raggy.

"—know it's raining, Schnuggly Boo-Boo McCutiekins," she hears him say faintly from the hallway, his voice gradually growing louder as it gets closer to the door. "And I'm really sorry we couldn't spend the afternoon together, but I told you I'd have to head uptown right after school, remember?"

_"Zoinks!"_ Alex mutters to herself, eyes wide with panic. Normally it wouldn't bother her in the least to be caught skulking through Justin's room, but things have hardly been 'normal' between them for the past couple days. It might raise questions she isn't ready to hear, much less answer. She casts her eyes frantically around the room, looking for an escape route, until they come to rest on the Tears of Blood poster hanging over his bed, the one she walked through to get in here.

She hesitates for a second, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she struggles to remember a wizard lesson that she was just barely paying attention to six months ago. Is _Go Through, Mow Through_ the kind of spell that stays active until you tell it to turn off? Or does it wear off as soon as you've used it?

"Just needed to pick up a few supplies for a project I'm working on," Justin says from the hallway, and his voice is, like, right outside the door. "Nonono, it's not for class. This is more of an, uh, extra-cirricular assignment."

And then the doorknob rattles as, on the other side of the door, Justin presumably lays his hand on it. And that's all it takes to make up Alex's mind for her. Crossing the floor towards the bed in three quick strides, she leaps up onto it, and throws herself bodily at the wall...then grunts as she slams face-first against it, drops back onto the mattress, then bounces off it and tumbles to the floor next to the bed, landing with a thud.

Yeah, so _Go Through, Mow Through_? Not the type of spell that stays active.

Also, ow.

Groaning, Alex winces in pain and brings one hand up to press it against her tender forehead...then freezes as she hears the door swing open, and Justin step hesitantly into the room.

"Hmm? No, I'm still here, Schnuggly Boo-Boo, I just thought I heard...what? No, you're not distracting me from something more important, I just...no, I was just...I just thought I heard...I was listening to you, McCutiekins, but I was distracted by the...no, hang on, I didn't mean—"

Lying on her side, hidden behind the bed on the opposite side of the room from the door, Alex rolls her eyes towards the ceiling. Sweet Zombie Jesus, could Justin _be_ any more pussy-whipped? Shaking her head, she draws herself up onto her hands and knees, intent on scurrying towards the door and freedom while his attention's elsewhere. But then her breath catches in her throat as the bed next to her squeaks its springs in protest when Justin sits down on the other side.

"Honey, don't be like this, OK?" Justin sighs, over the gentle rustle of a plastic bag as he sets it down on the bedspread next to him. "Look, I'm sorry if it feels like I've been distant all week, but...no, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just...no, I'm just...I'm just...just...just..."

Holding her breath, Alex braces both hands on the edge of the bed and gradually pulls herself up, just enough to peer over it. Sitting with his back to her, facing the open door, Justin slumps his shoulders and drops his head forward in defeat.

"Fine, I'll let you go, then," he says flatly, although it's plainly not his idea. "But listen, call me later, oka—hello? Juliet? Are you still—?"

Alex ducks back behind the bed a little, as Justin jabs his thumb down on the 'end' button, and drops his phone to the mattress in frustration. He reaches up to press the heels of both hands into his eyes, shaking his head as he scrubs them furiously. Then, after about a minute of that, he drops his hands into his lap, heaves a heavy sigh, then stands up and crosses towards the open doorway. Alex's heart leaps in her chest, and she tenses her entire body to bolt for escape as soon as he's out into the hall...but she quickly deflates as Justin merely shuts the door, then depresses the little button in the middle of the doorknob to lock it.

Aw, crap. Now she's stuck here.

She barely has time to register this, though, before Justin takes a few steps back, reaches around to pull his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans, then twirls it around his index finger and points it at the door.

_"What I'm about to do, no one else should see,"_ he intones, _"so lock this door, and throw away the key."_

And Alex's eyebrows jump several inches above the edge of the bed as the tip of Justin's wand glows purple, as does the door before him while the security ward settles on it.

Aw crap! Now she's _really_ stuck here!

Alex quickly ducks back down behind the bed as Justin turns around and steps back towards it, tucking his wand back into his pocket, his expression resolute. Pressed low against the floor, Alex frowns to herself as she hears the rustle of the plastic bag again as he rummages through it. Just what the hell is he planning to do that he's willing to use magic unsupervised to prevent anyone from seeing it?

"OK, let's see," Justin mutters to himself on the other side of the bed, as he lays out items one by one. "Two tea candles, blue, check...barbeque lighter, check...one bluebell flower, check...lavender petals, check...sea salt, check...a-a-a-a-and a pair of scales, check. Hmph, still wish the scroll had been more specific about that one. If it meant fish scales instead of weigh scales for some reason, I'm seriously pooched, here..."

Alex's frown deepens, and she fights the urge to lift her head back over the edge of the bed to see what's going on. That was one hell of of a shopping list. Either this 'extra-curricular project' of his is the Home Ec recipe from hell, or Justin is rhyming off the components for a spell. For some reason the inclusion of lavender petals in it is ringing some serious alarm bells somewhere in the back of her head—as though it's dangerous, somehow—although she doesn't have the faintest idea why. And the fact that Justin apparently feels the need to cast it in secret doesn't make her feel any better.

"Oh," Justin says to himself then, snapping his fingers. "Smoke alarm. Better disable it, just in case."

And wow, that can't be good, either. Because Justin, Tribeca Prep's Deputy Fire Drill Warden for four years running, willfully ignoring fire safety? Yeah, never a good sign. Jesus, maybe him fingering her really did knock them both into the Twilight Zone...

(Agh, seriously? Right, that's settles it. As soon as she gets out of here, she's marching herself down to the free clinic and getting herself shot full of whatever she needs to kill this stupid venereal dork-ease he's given her.)

Justin slips off his shoes, then hops up onto the bed to reach the smoke detector on the ceiling, forcing Alex to quickly scurry beneath it before he sees her. She breathes a quick sigh of relief as the bedsprings creak above her, and shakes her head. OK, this is getting to be a ridiculous situation, here. Like something out of those old black and white "comedies" with no sound that Justin and Harper love so much. She has half a mind to just fish her wand out of her boot and flash herself the hell out of here while she's out of sight, which she totally would if she weren't so damned curious about what Justin's up to. If only there were some way to see what he was doing without being seen.

"Oh, duh," she mutters, rolling her eyes at herself. Idiot. Hi, wizard much? Shaking her head, she twists to the side and strains her arm, struggling to reach her boot in the narrow confines of the space under the bed, and manages to grab hold of her wand on the third try.

_"I'm trying to operate under cover,"_ she whispers under her breath, as she twists her wand in a tight circle, _"so make me invisible to my big...uh, brover?"_

Alex bites her bottom lip hopefully as she stares at the tip of her wand. Nothing happens. She can practically feel the laws of physics and probability scoffing at her and saying "Really, little girl? Really?"

Alright look, not all her make 'em ups are gonna be gems, OK?

_"Don't do what I say, do what I mean,"_ she growls impatiently. _"Just fix it, goddammit, so I can't be seen."_

And even though she didn't actually intend for it to rhyme, that works. The business end of her wand flares with a blue-white glow that travels up her arm, causing first her fingers, then her hand, wrist and arm to completely fade from view...although, oddly enough, not the wand itself, nor the sleeve of her shirt.

Alex blinks at her seemingly hollow sleeve, then cranes her neck to look down along the length of her body. Yep, it's all still there: boots, skinny jeans, even the waistband of her panties peeking out a little just below the hem of her shirt.

"Oh, you have _got_ to be fucking kidding me," she groans, dropping her forehead against the carpet and closing her eyes. The spell fixed it so she can't be seen, all right, but apparently _only_ her. "Dude, seriously?"

Ugh. Somewhere, the laws of physics and probability are laughing at her.


	4. Chapter 4

"There," Justin says then, the bed frame creaking above her as he steps down off it back onto the floor. "Now we can get started. Safety first, though. Note...to self...replace batteries...in smoke detector...upon completion of spell..."

Alex snickers to herself. Though all she can see of him are his stocking feet and the bottoms of his khakis, in her minds' eye she can see him writing a reminder to himself on the back of his hand. Her suspicion is confirmed with the telltale click of a pen before his feet turn back towards the bed, and he begins gathering up the items laid upon it.

Alex sighs as his legs pace to and fro across the room in front of her, his hands (ngh!) coming briefly into view as he opens the canister of sea salt and pours it in a wide circle around him on the carpet. She drums the tips of her fingers on the floor while she watches, weighing her options in the face of her stupid failed invisibility spell.

One, she can do the smart thing and just flash herself out of here. But then she'll never find out what Justin is up to, and Alex is far too curious for that.

Two, she can just wait it out under the bed, and watch from here. But, while she might catch a glimpse of what Justin's doing, she doesn't exactly relish the idea of being down here all freakin' night. Because Justin is nothing but thorough, which means it could take him until well after fuck o'clock to finish this.

Three...

Yeah, she really doesn't want to think about three. If only because it makes her cheeks burn. And tingle in places she ought not be tingling. Especially after the last couple of days.

Justin finishes pouring out the salt, then steps carefully out of the circle so as not to disturb it, and retrieves the other items from the bed. His hands come into view again as they place a small, old-school lab balance down in the center of the circle—the scales he was talking about, apparently—and the two blue tea candles on either side, which he then lights with the BBQ lighter. Alex watches them flicker and burn from her hiding place under the bed, as Justin's legs walk away from her, towards his desk on the other side of the room. He slides open the bottom drawer on the right side, and Alex hears the rustle of paper as he retrieves a stack of...it looks like postcards, or something?...then slides it closed again and heads back towards her. He spends a moment flipping through them, selecting two from the stack, then bends forward once more to place each of the postcards-slash-whatevers on either of the lab balance's plates.

"OK, I think that's everything," he sighs, then claps his hands and rubs them together. "Let's get this party started."

Alex is unable to help the little disgusted grunt that escapes her as she winces at this. "Let's get this party started?" For real? As grateful as she is for Justin's tendency to work things through out loud—otherwise, she'd no idea what the hell he was doing—his desperate attempt to sound cool even tohimself is so lame, it threatens to kill her from second-hand embarrassment. Christalmighty, could he possibly be any bigger of a dork?

Oblivous, Justin crosses back to the door one more time, double-checks the handle to make sure that it's locked, then flicks off the lights, casting the room into total darkness save for the flickering light from the small candles to either side of the scales. Alex glances from them to Justin's legs, hyper-aware of the sound of her own breath. He pauses by the door for a moment, then steps back into the circle of sea-salt and begins walking slowly, counter-clockwise, around the lab balance and candles. She hears a gentle crunching noise as he passes in front of her, despite him stepping in stocking feet on a carpeted floor, but just as it occurs to her to wonder why, crushed lavender and bluebell flower petals drift down through the air into view.

_"Verum deformes et occulta fraude,"_ Justin intones as he sprinkles a second circle of flower petals around the scales and candles, just inside the circle of sea salt. _"Abrogare hoc ut veritas orietur."_

_"Ohhhhh, no..."_ Alex groans softly. Latin. Terrific. Not only does that mean this is a very old spell, and therefore incredibly dangerous, but it means she's got no hope in hell of knowing what it's supposed to do. As much as she hates the stupid modern rhyming ones, at least they're up to code, with built-in safeguards to keep you from completely shorting out the magic power grid, and killing yourself in the process. Not to mention that they're in English, so you can freakin' well understand them without having to be fluent in a motherfucking dead language!

_"Excitanda deos, qui operatur in squamae!"_ Justin continues, sounding increasingly agitated as he completes his circuit around the scales. _"Verum revelare ob omnium oculos!"_

And then, as the last of the flower petals fall, completing the inner circle, the flames of both tiny candles suddenly flare skyward as though powered by blowtorches. Alex flinches in surprise, grunting in pain as she hits her head on the bottom of Justin's bed frame. Even Justin jumps backwards, stumbling a little as he catches himself at the last moment, before his heel can scuff against the sea salt and break the circle.

Yow. So, good thing he took the batteries out of the smoke detector after all, then.

Gradually, the flames die down and settle back into the tiny flickering lights they were before...except now, they appear to be alternating between red, green and purple, and throwing off the occasional spark. Between them, the plates of the lab balance begin to see-saw back and forth ever so slightly, all on their own, even though the postcards or whatever that Justin's placed on them must weigh next to nothing.

"Ohhhhh-kaayyy," Justin sighs, in what sounds to Alex like equal parts triumph and relief. "OK. That wasn't so bad after all. Now we just leave it going until the candles have burnt themselves out, and done. That little jackass will never know what hit him."

Under the bed, Alex lifts her head as much as the narrow space allows, and cocks an eyebrow at this. Wait, what was that? Is...is Justin casting this spell on somebody? But who? And _why?_ Grimacing to herself, she risks inching forward a little more, and turns her head to the side, craning one ear towards the end of the bed, eager to hear more.

"Aaaaaaand in the meantime," Justin continues, bringing his palms together and rubbing them eagerly again, "while we wait for that to finish..."

He trails off, as his feet skirt carefully around the edge of the sea-salt circle and come back towards the bed. Alex leans a little farther forward, straining to listen, but Justin doesn't say anything else.

_What?_ In the meantime, _what?_ While we wait for _what_ to finish? Sweet Zombie Jesus, of all the times for Chatty Cathy to clam the fuck up, he chooses now?

Apparently so, because the next sound Alex hears is the plastic bag rustling on the bed again, then the box spring above her squeaking in protest and dropping a few crucial inches as Justin presumably settles himself down upon it. Next come the jingle of keys as her brother's weight shifts above her, towards the nightstand to her right. Overcome by curiousity, she dares to poke her invisible head out past the edge of the bed, and glances back just in time to see him insert a key in the top drawer, then slide it open and pull out his laptop.

Alex snorts in satisfaction as he pushes the drawer closed again, and disappears out of sight over the top edge of the mattress. Even with all the security wards that Justin places on his room to keep her out, he still feels it necessary to lock up his laptop when he's not here? Geez, paranoid much? As if she gives a crap what he's doing on that thing. What is she gonna do, hack into it and uncover his secret trove of _Charmed and Dangerous_ fanfics, or something?

Shyeah, as if.

From above comes the sounds of the laptop booting up, and the subtle clicks of Justin's fingertips dancing across the keyboard. Alex sighs impatiently as she draws her head back under the box spring, crosses her arms and rests her chin on top of them. Just beyond the end of the bed, the candles continue to flicker and spark, as the scales waver back and forth of their own accord. The effect is soothing, almost hypnotic, and Alex stifles a yawn as she watches and considers what to do next. Clearly waiting Justin out isn't going to work, since he doesn't seem to be leaving anytime soon. And now that the lights are off, flashing herself out is going to cause so much of a lightshow that he'll know she was here, for sure. (They do call it 'flashing out' for a reason, after all.)

Which leaves option three.

Alex really doesn't like option three, but what other choice does she have? Other than getting caught, of course...but then, for Alex Russo, getting caught is never an option. Call it hubris, call it pride, call it gross stubborn stupidity, but even option three is more appealing than that.

With a small groan, Alex nods to herself. And moving as slowly and quietly as possible in the awkwardly small space beneath her brother's bed, she begins to peel her still-visible clothing off of her very invisible body, piece by piece. Because as much easier it would be to just use her wand to flash them of her all at once...well, there's that whole 'flash' problem again. Like it or not, there's no other choice but to do this the old-fashioned way.

Somewhere, the laws of physics and probability are practically pissing themselves with laughter. Bastards.

Her shirt goes first, then her bra, followed by her boots and socks. Her pants prove to be a bit of an issue—whoever came up with the idea of skinny jeans clearly never considered the possibility of having to shrug them off while trapped beneath their brother's bed, and should therefore be drug out into the street and shot for their shortsightedness—but she finally works them off after what feels like an eternity. After that, losing her panties is a piece of cake.

(A piece of extremely damp cake, apparently. Because even though she's hidden out of sight beneath the bed, and now completely invisible besides, just the idea of stripping herself naked as the day she was born with Justin right above her is making her cooch trickle like a broken faucet.)

Bunching her clothes up together into a messy pile, Alex pushes it into what looks like the darkest corner beneath the bed, hiding it from view to be retrieved later. She hesitates a moment over her wand, not wanting to leave it behind but unable to think of a way to conceal it, before she reluctantly lays it on top of the pile. Grumbling inwardly—and promising herself that somehow, some way, Justin is gonna pay for this shit—Alex half-crawls, half-rolls out from under the bed, and stands up.

Justin can't see her, of course. He doesn't so much as glance up towards her, as he pulls the shrink wrap off of what looks like a brand-new DVD case. But the excited tug she feels in the pit of her stomach, the electric surge she feels in her clit as she stands before him—completely naked in front of her brother for the first time since their mother last bathed them together when she was three—is as undeniable as it is delicious.

She feels her nipples tighten and swell as she watches him. Her own breath sounds impossibly loud in her ears, but she does nothing to bring it under control, daring him to notice it, notice her. It's strange, because she's pretty sure the whole point of this is not to get caught, yet she still feels a bitter surge of disappointment when all he does is pop his new DVD open, pulls out the disc and feeds it into the side of his silver brushed-aluminum Macbook. Annoyed, she toys with the idea of tiptoeing over beside him and blowing in his ear—nono, putting her tongue in it, even better—and making him jump clear off the bed, but eventually decides against it. Justin's a screamer. Always has been, always will be. And security ward or no, at least one of their parents is bound to come running at the noise and pound on the door until Justin lets them in. Which would only serve to expose both of them. No point in cutting her nose off to spite her face. And Alex is plenty exposed as it is, already.

Besides, Justin's completely preoccupied whatever geektastic piece of crap he's just fed into his Macbook. (Another one of those imported "dating sim" games she's not supposed to know he plays, judging by the look on his face, she'd put money on it.) She'll never get a better chance to escape. He'll be so absorbed in trying to bed virtual Japanese schoolgirls that he won't even notice when she eases the door open—because, duh, even Justin isn't dopey enough to cast a security ward on the door that would lock it from the inside as well as out—then slips out and gently closes it behind her.

But first...

Turning her back on Justin as he continues to fiddle with his stupid Macbook, and swinging her hips a little more than is absolutely necessary, Alex pads barefoot across the carpet towards the middle of the room. She steps carefully over both the outer ring of sea salt, and the inner circle of flower petals within in, because even she's not reckless enough to risk breaking them when there's such old magic involved. Then, having reached the center, where the enchanted lab balance is still doing its freaky see-saw thing, as the tea candles flicker and spark to either side of it, she stoops forward to take a closer look.

(And she ignores the illicit little thrill that runs through her at the thought that she's presenting to her big brother, all bent forward with her ass and her sopping wet pussy poised mid-air before him, ripe for the taking. Big deal. It's not like he can see them, anyway.)

Alex squints in the flickering light of the candles, confused by what she's seeing. One the one side of the scale, bobbing up and down atop the left-hand plate, is a candid 4"x6" photo of _her,_ uncharacteristically smiling genuinely at the camera, instead of cocking one eyebrow and smirking sardonically at it, the way she usually does. Her long, curly hair is tied back away from her face, her brown eyes dancing with joy, and even to herself she looks unspeakably happy. Alex swallows against the twin lumps that form on either side of her throat as she remembers why: that was the day in Puerto Rico, when she thought she'd lost her family - lost Justin - forever and ever, only to miraculously make everything right again at the thirteenth hour. It was Justin who'd snapped the picture, actually, telling her in a rare, unguarded moment that could only have come after what they'd been through together, that she'd never looked so beautiful. And as overjoyed as she'd been when he'd taken the photo, the compliment he'd given her afterward had practically sent her over the moon.

(Not that she'd ever admit that to anybody. Least of all him. Or, y'know, herself. Because, duh.)

She's never seen this photo in the family album that their mom had put together of all the pictures from that vacation. She's always assumed it just hadn't turned out. Justin is famous for getting his thumb in the way, or leaving the lens cap on, after all. Now, though, she finally understands the real reason why: Justin kept it for himself.

Puzzled, Alex turns to glance over her shoulder at him as he continues to fiddle with his computer, its backlit screen casting eerie shadows across his face. Why would he have kept it? And why the hell was he now using it as a spell component? Shaking her head, she turns back to the scale and glances at the opposite plate...and frowns as she realizes with a start that she's looking a blown-up yearbook photo of T.J. Taylor.

T.J.? What the hell did T.J. have to do with any—?

Oh. Wait. There was that little thing at that party the other night, when she'd gotten stuck in a closet with T.J. during Seven Minutes In Heaven. Nothing had happened, of course—aside from Alex cock-punching him after he'd stupidly tried to put his hand up her shirt—but that wasn't what T.J. was telling people. Which is what had led to her coming home drunk off her ass at three in the morning in the first place...

_"Don't worry, Alex," Justin had insisted. "I'll fix this."_

_"There's nothing to fix, egghead," Alex laughed bitterly, waving one hand as if to brush the whole thing off. "Look, it'll be fine, really. You know how it is. Everyone will just whisper behind my back for a week, then someone else'll do something scandalous that gets everybody's attention, and I'll be old news. I survived it when Riley told the baseball team I did it with him before he broke up with me. I'll survive this. Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives, yadda yadda yadda."_

_Justin had stiffened, his grip on her hand tightening. Apparently, no one on the baseball team, or in Alien Loser League for that matter, had ever filled him in that particular juicy little rumor._

_"OK, so now I'm definitely going to fix this," he'd said. "With extreme prejudice."_

_"God, Justin, you're taking this harder than I am," Alex said, shaking her head. "Look, seriously: don't. Trying to do anything about it is only gonna make it worse. Just let it blow over, all right?"_

_"No," he'd said firmly, his voice level. "Nobody talks about you that way, and gets away with it. Not as long as I'm around to do something about it. I'll fix this."_

_Alex had taken a moment to absorb this. Silently took a drink from her beer, then another._

_"Assuming I wanted you to," she'd said in a quiet voice, without looking at him, "and I'm not admitting that I do, then how exactly would you do it? Because it's T.J. we're talking about, here. He's a pretty good wizard. I don't think a simple truth spell is gonna cut it."_

_"Please," Justin snorted darkly. "T.J. Taylor might think he's hot shit in a champagne glass when it comes to magic, but next to me he's cold diarrhea in a Dixie cup. I will pwn his noob ass. By the time I'm done with him, he'll be so compelled to spread the truth about what happened tonight, he'll be hiring skywriters and taking out full page ads in every local paper from the Penny Saver to the motherfucking New York Times. I. Will. Fix. This. OK?"_

Alex blinks away the memory—or at least she tries to, but it's difficult to tell when your eyelids are transparent—then leans forward a little, trying to get a better look at the teetering enchanted lab balance before her. To be perfectly honest, in all her confusion over what had happened with Justin later that night, she'd completely forgotten about the whole thing with T.J. Sure, people had been pointing at her and whispering in the hallways, but no moreso than usual, really. (In fact, it's kind of a point of pride with her that every time something bad happens at Tribeca Prep, everyone automatically assumes that she's responsible, whether she really is or not.)

Clearly, though, Justin has not only not forgotten, but is determined to make good on his promise to fix it, and force T.J. into telling the truth about what really happened.

And that's when it suddenly comes back to Alex why lavendar petals set off warning bells in the back of her head—they're a powerful component common to old-school truth compulsion spells. She might not pay very close attention to most things during wizard lessons, but that she'd definitely made a point of remembering. Because to an accompished liar like herself—or TJ—they might as well by kryptonite.

"Wow," Alex murmurs to herself, her vision blurring slightly as her eyes threaten to mist over. Justin wasn't kidding aroud. He means to do this in a big, bad way, and consequences be damned. If it were anyone else, she'd say it was badass, but Justin doesn't have an ounce of badass in him...which somehow makes it even more badass, because she knows the only reason he's risking so much, and putting himself so far out there, is for her.

(Unf. As if she wasn't wet enough for him already...)

And that's about when it starts. It takes a few moments for it to penetrate, work its way through the sappy reverie she finds herself in as she watches her picture and T.J.'s bob up and down opposite each other, but she gradually becomes aware of the fact that, faintly, in the background, she's hearing some seriously porny bow-chikka-bow-bow music. Some seriously _familiar_ bow-chikka-bow-bow music. Accompanied by some pretty enthusiastic moaning and grunting. Frowning to herself, Alex stands up and turns partway around...then gasps audibly at what she sees.

Fortunately, Justin is way too preoccupied with stroking the raging red hard-on that protrudes from his open jeans to notice.


	5. Chapter 5

"Ohmigod," Alex says under her breath, as her hand flies to her mouth. Really? After almost eighteen years of relatively uneventful, nearly-peaceful co-existence, she catches him beating off to porn _twice in the same week?_ OK, granted, this time the situation was a little more contrived than the last, and could potentially, to an outside observer, be construed as being entirely her own goddamned fault...but still, c'mon! Seriously? _Seriously?_

Utterly transfixed, Alex watches her big brother grip his cock tightly in his fist and rhythmically stroke it up and down, amazed by how tautly swollen and angry red it looks. Maybe it's just the angle, or the flickering light from the candles and the monitor, but somehow it looks bigger than she remembers, more imposing. A tiny bead of translucent-white precum oozes its way out of the tip as she watches, and Alex runs the tip of her tongue between her lips, feeling herself overcome by the urge to lick it off.

Just then, a particularly urgent moan suddenly erupts from the speakers of the Macbook, one that Alex could swear she's heard before. Frowning to herself in puzzlement, overcome with curiosity but unable to take her eyes off the towering erection growing out of Justin's fist, she tiptoes across the room as fast as she can manage, without making an undue amount of noise. Not paying attention, she misses stepping on the circle of flower petals merely by chance, then stumbles a little when she reaches the ring of sea salt, remembering at the last second to step over rather than through it, to avoid breaking the circle. She hisses a curse through her teeth as she stubs her big toe against the bedpost, but again Justin is thankfully too busy to be paying attention. Limping slightly, she makes her way along the edge of the bed, until she's practically standing right next to him, then leans forward and turns her head to one side, until her head is almost directly in front of his, so she can see what he's seeing. (And this is usually about the point where Justin would tell her, in his overly-patient, 'my sister is an idiot' voice, that she makes a better door than a window—har-dee-har-har—but given that she's invisible, the reverse is actually true, for once.)

It takes a long moment for Alex to tear her gaze from the silhouette of her brother's hard member, bobbing up and down ever so slightly as he pumps it in his hand, so slowly and steadily that it practically hypnotizes her. Eventually, though, she does allow herself to focus on the wide, bright screen behind it, and cocks an eyebrow as she's greeted with a strangely familiar sight...

_A particularly orgasmic moan erupted from the TV, then, drawing both their attention to it. But as Justin watched the heavily-tattooed, blonde Asian girl grind furiously against her partner in unbridled (fake) ecstasy, Alex had found herself watching him. Because there was something about the intense look in his eyes, and the determined set of his chin, that had seemed awfully damn familiar..._

_"Oh, wow," she'd blurted out, as the reason why suddenly clicked home. "I get it. You're just not watching this stuff to get off. You're actually studying it, aren't you?"_

_Even as his spine stiffened, Justin's eyes slid shiftily towards hers. "No, I'm not," he oh-so-obviously lied._

_"Ohhhhhh, Justin...!" Alex had groaned into the palm of her hand as she brings it up to cover her face, her tone dripping with equal parts exasperation and affection. "Only you could turn porn into homework."_

_"I so am not!" Justin said defensively._

_"Uh, yeah. You so are," Alex said, her voice muffled by her palm. She'd furrowed her eyebrows as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "You're trying to see how you measure up to other guys, the only way you can. And hopefully trying to pick up some tricks along the way, right? I'll bet you've even been taking notes, haven't you? Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong."_

_"I'm...you...shut up," Justin said lamely, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest._

_"Yeah, that's what I thought," Alex had sighed. "For the love of Christ, every time I think you can't possibly get any lamer..."_

_Alex slid her hand down her face until it had cupped her chin, and began tapping her index finger against her bottom lip as she quietly scrutinized him. Justin watched her uneasily out of the corner of his eye and began to lean away from her, ever so slightly, clearly recognizing her 'formulating-an-evil-plan' expression when he saw it. Then he'd flinched as, nodding once to herself, Alex reached down to snatch her beer off the table and upended it, shotgunning the remainder of its contents all in one go._

_"Right, let's do this," she'd finally burped, tossing aside the empty can, oblivious to Justin's wince as it landed on the floor with a clatter. "First things first: take your boxers off. Let's get a good look at what it is you're working with."_

...which was more or less how she'd wound up seeing his cock the first time around. Or, at least, the first time since Mom had last bathed them together, when she was three or four. And it had definitely gotten more impressive with age. Oh, he'd put up a fight at first—there'd been a brief little game of tug-of-war with his boxers, which she'd naturally won, just as she would the wizard competition one day. Then, once she'd literally beaten the pants off him (ha!), one thing had pretty quickly led to another, and...well, here they are.

Shaking off the memory—not to mention the smile it puts on her face—Alex blinks and frowns in confusion as her attention returns to the present, and the scene in front of her. It's definitely the exact same porn he's watching all right, and not just something similar with the same, ahem, "actress". (And yes, the air quotes are _totally_ necessary. Chick couldn't fake-orgasm her way out of a wet paper bag. She's seen more convincing performances in tween sitcoms on Disney Channel, for Christ's sake.) But the first time she'd randomly caught him spanking it to this, he'd been watching it on late-night cable TV. Had he actually liked it so much that he'd tracked down it down on DVD?

Nope. No way. Not a chance. There was absolutely no way on God's green Earth that Justin Russo had actually walked into one of those sketchy little stores in the East Village—the ones with the whited-out windows and the red neon signs proclaiming '18+ ONLY' and promising private viewing booths, which he refused to so much as look at when he passed them in the street, lest he should spontanously combust from embarrassment—much less that he'd actually purchased something from one of them. What would Captain Jim Bob Sherwood say?

And yet, there's no denying the DVD case lying open on the bed next to him. Or the familiar, heavily-tattooed Asian blonde woodenly _"unh-unh-unhing"_ all over the screen of his Macbook as she takes a nine-inch dick up the pooper, while Justin strokes his own (not quite so large, but still impressive in its own right) cock, in counterpoint to it. Alex has never made a habit of getting caught red-handed, but it's happened to her enough that she can recognize it when she sees it. And if this was a Scooby-Doo cartoon, this is about the point when Justin would be hauled away by the cops, muttering about how he would have gotten away with it, if not for those meddling kids...

Jesus. Justin buying porn. Watching porn. _Beating off_ to porn. And all of his own free will. Just a week ago, the thought would have never occurred to her. Shaking her head, Alex manages to tear eyes away from the illicit activity on the screen (and that which is silhouetted in front of it) just long enough to glance at her brother's face in utter disbelief.

And then she does a classic double-take as she realizes that he's not even paying attention to the DVD as he strokes himself. Instead, he's looking down, off to his left, fiercely preoccupied with something sitting on the far side of the bed, hidden from her view.

"What the f—?" she mutters in her confusion, then slaps one hand over her mouth, eyes going wide over it as she remembers a second too late that she's not supposed to be here. She holds her breath for an anxious second, but once again, Justin is way too involved in whatever it is he's gawking at to have heard. Exhaling slowly in her relief, Alex backs away from the bed, then slowly tiptoes towards—and then around—the end of it. Careful this time to avoid both the ring of seasalt, and the other bedpost, she creeps as slowly and quietly as her impatience will allow. In the dimness of the room, she's barely able to make out what exactly he's looking down at: a bunch of glossy little rectangles laid out on the _Star Wars_ bedspread next to him.

Wait, so hardcore porn isn't enough for Justin to get it up? He needs something more? Man...just how much of a pervert is he?

The glare from the computer screen reflected on the glossy surface of each of the little rectangles makes it impossible to see what they are, at least not until she's right on top of them. And as Alex creeps steadily towards them, her mind races, wondering what they could be. Dirty pictures of Vampire Barbie? Nah, that's not it—vampires can't be captured on film. Clippings from mom's Victoria's Secret catalogue? No wait, Max had beaten him to it. She'd tripped over that in his room that last time she'd gone to wake Max up for school. (And it had stuck right to the bottom of her foot, ugh!)

Pfft, wait a second. Knowing Justin, it's probably just something humiliatingly lame and dorky. Like autographed postcards of Calico Woman, or borderline racy _Magic: The Gathering_ cards, or something. Overcome with curiosity, Alex practically sprints the last few steps to the side of his bed, every pretense of stealth completely abandoned. Grinning wickedly to herself, convinced she's about to uncover the single greatest piece of blackmail material known to man, she looks down, and...

Oh. Oh, _holy shit!_


	6. Chapter 6

Alex doesn't gasp. She doesn't curse. She doesn't exclaim in shock or cry out in surprise. And not because she's trying to stay undercover or keep from getting caught, either. No, she doesn't make a sound because there simply isn't a sound Alex could make that would adequately capture what she feels at this particular moment in time. And even if there is...no, not even a hopeless, know-it-all, '_Words With Friends'_-loving dork like Justin would know it.

Instead, she silently looks down, her mouth hanging open and her skin puckering into goosebumps all over—thankfully as completely invisible as the rest of her, which is a good thing, given that she's not wearing a stich of clothing to hide them—and stares at Justin's private little stash of fetish fuel. Even as he uses it to get himself off, less than a foot away from her. Both his raspy, labored breathing and the _bow-chikka-bow-bow_ soundtrack of the porn movie playing in the background on his Macbook are eerily loud in her ears as, she tilts her head a little to the side, and tries to make sense out of what she's seeing.

Well, her first guess was at least half-right. The small rectangles carefully laid out across the bedspread next to Justin? The ones he's staring at without blinking as he jerks himself off with abandon? Yeah, they're definitely photos, all right. But they aren't the dirty pictures of Vampire Barbie she thought they are. Not even close.

Nope, they're all of her, instead. Of herself. Of _Alexandra Marguerita Russo_.

They're not exactly the type of photos she'd expect, though. (Not that she ever would have expected this at all, not in a gajillion years. But whatever, it's been that kind of week.) Because there's nothing dirty about them, not even remotely. Nothing gross, or compromising, or particularly sexy, even.

Most of them are just everyday candids, taken at barbecues, birthdays, or family game nights before things turned ugly. A few of her in her cheerleader outfit. A couple of her in her Zombie Prom dress. Yeah, there's one or two of her windsurfing on vacation in Puerto Rico a few months back…in a bathing suit and showing a little leg, maybe, but otherwise bound up in a ridiculously bulky life jacket that shouldn't be even remotely arousing. (Not unless Justin has some kind of weird nautical fetish that Alex can't begin to guess the name of, anyway.)

The one thing they all have in common, though? They're all of just her, and her alone, with nobody else in the frame. And in almost every single one of them, Alex is looking directly at the camera, her dark eyes bright and dancing, her pretty features lit up with a wide, uncharacteristic smile. Not the mischievous grin of an evil genius, nor the sarcastic half-smirk of a deadpan snarker…but an all-too-rare, genuine smile, that radiates warmth and happiness. Each photo captures a completely unguarded moment in which she'd dropped the act—the carefully polished mask of the girl who couldn't care less about the rest of the world, or what it happened to think of her—and was, for a brief second or two, unabashedly and unashamedly herself.

Every single one of them, a moment of truth. Just like the picture of her he'd placed on the scale, to weigh against TJ's. Just like that moment they'd shared the other night when—after everything else that had happened—Justin had kissed her, leaving her utterly speechless for perhaps the first time in her short life.

And just like that, Alex realizes what's going on here, why Justin risked a one-way trip to H-E-double-hockey-sticks to set foot in one of those evil "dens of inequity" in the Village. Why he'd bought the exact same skin flick they'd watched together. And why he's skipped to the exact scene that had been playing when she'd walked in and caught him, then let it play in the background while he flogged his log to photos of her looking...well,happy, for lack of a better word.

It hits her in the pit of her stomach with all the force of a fistful of feathers: Justin is trying to recreate that moment of truth they shared. The moment in which they'd made love for the first time.

Justin's words, of course, not hers. To Alex, it had been just a little harmless smut, nothing more...or so she's kept telling herself, at least a couple hundred times a day, every day since. But for some reason she can't explain, her vision goes blurry, and her eyes begin to sting, as she looks from the photos of herself, to the look of passionate adoration on Justin's face, and finally back to the enchanted lab balance bobbing back and forth in the center of the room, working its mojo on TJ Taylor. Each of them, in its own unique way—including, strangely enough, the hardcore orgy scene playing itself out on his laptop—a sure sign of how much he cares. Of how devoted he is to her.

And, it occurs to her, as she gradually breaks into a wicked little grin, an undeniable sign that _he_ hasn't been able to stop thinking about the other night, either!

Ha! She _knew_ it! She knew that she'd know what she was looking for when she saw it! And this—all of this—definitely qualified as being _'it'._

Awwww yeah, that's right. Cue the Fiesta Trio and break out the Scooby Snacks, bitch! Dora the Explorer can go eat a dick! Her and her creepy little talking monkey!

And that's how Alex Russo winds up shaking her naked, invisible booty in an impromptu victory salsa around her brother's bed as he furiously masturbates only a few feet away, completely unaware...right up until the moment that she shakes it a little too hard, and carelessly scuffs her heel into the ring of sea salt that encircles Justin's truth ritual.

The second her skin makes contact, the flickering little tea candles erupt like flame throwers, each projecting a thick column of wicked red flame into the air, scorching the ceiling. Alex shrieks and recoils away from them, the heat so strong that she's certain her skin will be bright pink all over, once she's actually visible again. Justin shrieks even louder, the Macbook tumbling off his lap onto the bed as he scrambles backwards until his shoulderblades are pressed against his _Tears of Blood_ poster on the wall, with his bare knees pulled up to his chin.

"AAAAHH!" he screams, because Justin's always been a screamer. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Half-crouched on the floor in in front of the bed, Alex looks up and scowls at him. What the frig is he screaming about? It's not like he's the one who's gonna have to explain to Harper later how he managed to get an all-over sunburn in the middle of a rainstorm in October. Shaking her head in disgust, and wrinkling her nose at the smell of singed hair—clearly there's a trim in her very near future—Alex begins to cast her eyes frantically around the room, trying to figure out what she did to make the little tea lights mad at her.

"OK...it's OK...calm down, J-Man," Justin says to himself in the meantime, causing Alex to roll her eyes. (Because, J-Man? Really?) Squaring his shoulders, he takes a deep breath through his nose, and lets it out through his mouth, like an expectant mother in labor, breathing through a contraction. "Calm down and think, egghead. The book warned you this might happen, remember?"

"Oh sure, now you tell me," Alex mutters bitterly, under her breath. She glances down at the spot on the carpet he appears to be fixated on, and groans as she realizes that there's a visible footprint right smack in the middle of the seasalt circle—namely hers, since that's where her invisible foot happens to be planted at the moment.

The circle isn't broken, exactly—her heel hasn't scuffed clean through, just halfway—but it's a near thing. No wonder the candles got all pissed-off and threw a shit-fit at her. It was probably what the ancient Latinos, or whoever, considered an early warning system. Because while Alex doesn't know a whole lot about old ritual magic—having either slept through that particular wizard lesson, or sent an Edgebobo Utoosis clone in her place while she skipped it entirely, she's not exactly sure which—the one thing she's absolutely crystal clear on is that broken circle equals bad. (And OK, if she's retained that much, she'd probably just been half-asleep through it, then.)

Moving gingerly, Alex lifts her foot ever so slowly out of the salt, careful not to disturb it any further, starting with the heel. And the instant her big toe is clear of the floor, leaving her balancing awkwardly on the other foot, the tea lights knock off their whole blowtorch act, and go back to normal—as normal as four candles throwing off magical sparks in alternating primary colors get, anyway—as though nothing happened. Shoulders sagging, Alex allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief.

Justin, on the other hand, is practically hyperventilating as he looks wildly around the room.

"Am I—?" he squawks, his voice pitched two octaves higher than normal, before the clears his throat and tries again. "Am I in the presence of an ancient spirit seeking tribute in return for the boon I have requested?"

Alex pauses in the middle of lowering her foot back to the ground, and looks back up at him as though he's one cheese short of an enchilada suprise. Wait, what's this now?

"I know about the old ways," Justin continues, his eyes sweeping back and forth across the room, his voice quivering just enough that probably only Alex herself would be able to tell how scared he is. "I understand that magic of this kind often comes at a price. And I appreciate that establishing my sister's innocence beyond all doubt is—given who she is—a pretty tall order to say the least..."

Alex snorts, and starts to scowl at him in offense, then simply shrugs it off and nods. Yeah, OK, fine. So maybe he had a point there.

"But I'm willing to do whatever you ask," Justin goes on, the subtle tremor disappearing from his voice entirely. "Give you anything you want. Name your bargain. It's yours for the asking."

Alex blinks at this—or again, at least she thinks she does, transparent eyelids be damned—and takes a step towards him. Because one other half-heard piece of information about old-school pact magic has just come floating back to her, and if Justin's prepared to make the kind of deal he thinks he's making, he's even more serious about this than she thought. Ancient spirits don't just hit you up for cash, or gift cards from Suburban Outfitters, or whatever. They trade in stuff like firstborn children. The lives of loved ones. _Souls._ That kind of thing. They play for keeps.

Jesus Christ. Justin wasn't even a little bit kidding when he said he'd fix things for her. He is not fooling around.

"Look, whoever you are...whatever you are..." Justin says evenly, still looking around the room, "with all due respect, let's stop wasting each other's time and just get on with this, please. I appreciate the theatrics, but you're not exactly dealing with an amateur. I know you're here. I can sense your presence."

Alex cocks an eyebrow at this, and tilts her head to the side a little. Oh, so now he can sense her presence? Gee, and after only having been in the room with her for the better part of an hour. It's not like she's been exactly subtle, either. Jeez, the candles do a little pillar of flame action, and suddenly that sets his wizzy-sense a-tingling?

She breaks off in mid-thought, and looks over her shoulder at the footprint in the salt. Oh. Ohhhhhh. So yeah, that right there is a pretty dead giveaway...

"Identify yourself!" Justin shouts then, defiantly, getting up onto his knees on the bed. "Tell me what it is you want from me. Now. Or I'll put an end to the ritual, send you back from whence you came, and summon someone else who's a little more forthcoming. It doesn't make one damn bit of difference to me."

Normally Alex would snort or giggle mercilessly at Justin's pathetic attempt to be all kewl and badass, but the thing is...well, it actually isn't all that pathetic, for once. In fact, it's actually kind of, um, hot, for lack of a better word. There's something about the tone of his voice, the confident way his shoulders are set, and the determined glint in his eye that's doing more to turn her on than any late-night skin flick ever has. So much that it feels as if her excitement is actually dripping down the insides of her thighs. If she were still wearing panties right now, they'd be flooded.

And OK, so the fact that his cock is still standing at rigid attention doesn't hurt, either. Possibly even redder and harder than it was when he was stroking it, it juts up and out from him, bobbing slightly with his every movement, commanding her attention. God, she can't imagine what it must be like to walk around with one of those things in your pants. It looks awfully uncomfortable, almost painful, all swollen and veiny. And yet staring at it fills her with an animal need, pulsing deep in her core. To touch it. To feel it. To...

That milky-white bead of precum, she can't help but notice, is still there. Sitting on the tip of his dick, larger than ever.

Oh, what the hell, huh? It's not like he knows it's her. And it sure as shit seems as though this is where everything's been leading to, so far. Almost as if, somehow, they've each been led to this point by some outside force, so that nature could take its course...no matter how unnatural that course might seem.

Yeah, that's it. It's those stupid laws of physics and probability that are responsible, the ones that govern everything magic can and can't do. This is all their fault, goddammit. Not hers. Not his. Theirs. All theirs. Nothing either of them can do but play along, right?

Damn skippy.

And so, having characteristically absolved herself of all responsibility for what she's about to do, Alex responds to her brother's command, and proceeds to let him know in no uncertain terms what the invisible entity that had invaded his room wanted from him. Stepping towards him and bending forward—her heart pounding heavily in her chest, ears and clit—she reaches out to wrap her small hand around the base of his warm, throbbing cock, and holds him like an ice cream cone...which she then begins to lick.


	7. Chapter 7

"UNH!" Justin gasps, his entire body seeming to shudder at once as Alex makes contact with the head of his cock, causing her to grin wickedly around her outstretched and very invisible tongue. Deliberately moving achingly slow, savoring every second of his confusion, she slowly runs her tongue over the little slit in the tip, and laps up her brother's pre-cum.

That the taste of it takes her completely by surprise is an understatement. Not at all like skunky rotten eggs (as she halfway expected from having eavesdropped on some of the other girls in gym class) but salty, with a bit of a bitter, citrusy tang. A little like licking salt off your palm and sucking a lemon after doing a shot of tequila...but at the same time, not really like that at all, but something completely unique. Unique to him. And as Alex swallows it, she finds she really, really likes it. Enough that she's greedy for more. (Because as far as she's always been concerned, that whole deal about having too much a good thing? Yeah, total bullshit.)

Fortunately, Justin's body is only too happy to oblige her. His cock spasms mightily as she squeezes him in her hand, eliciting a scandalized groan from him as another glob of precum pools in the slit of his cock, thicker and whiter than the first. Alex's grin widens as she watches it grow, then drags the tip of her tongue back over it, lapping it up.

"Ohhhhhhh-migosh!" Justin says, with a shuddering exhalation of breath. He holds his arms awkwardly at shoulder height, bent at the elbows and his hands twitching, as if desperately he wants to do something about what's happening to him, but isn't quite sure what. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, he stares down at his dick, standing out away from his body at an unnaturally odd angle as Alex clutches it in her invisible hand. "Why...? I mean, what...? I mean, why...?"

Alex beams at his reaction, the way she always does when she provokes him into sputtering uncontrollably. She decides to up the ante by opening her mouth wider and dragging her tongue up his entire length, from the base of him right to the tip. Immediately she's rewarded with a stuttering string of random consonants, uttered in that breathy, scandalized tone of voice of his that she's secretly thrilled to, ever since she was four. She's never stopped to analyze why she enjoys it so much before—because seriously, it was enough that it felt good, and analyzing things was for anal people—but right now, with her brother's cock warm and throbbing against her tongue, it's suddenly clear to her that there's always been at least some element of a sexual thrill to it. That some part of her, deep inside, has _always_ wanted to drive Justin crazy like this.

(And judging by the sticky wetness seeping down the insides of her thighs, she has a pretty good idea what part of her that is...)

"Uhhhhh," Justin groans, then shakes his head sharply and visibly swallows hard, his adams apple bopping up and down as he struggles to get a hold of himself. "Er, listen...uh, whatever you are...not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but...um, would you mind stopping that, please?"

Alex allows herself a small snort at this, then tilts her head to the side and starts licking his shaft like a melting popsicle on a hot afternoon in August. Stop? _Now?_ Shyeah. As if.

"Ohhhh, great Cesar's ghost...!" Justin exclaims, his hips jerking forward as if by their own accord. "OK, so much for asking politely. Now what? Focus, Justin! Focus!"

Closing his eyes, Justin brings his fingertips up to his temples and begins massaging them vigorously, clearly in an effort to stimulate his mind while distracting himself from what Alex is doing to him down below. Accepting this as an unspoken challenge, Alex shifts her grip on his cock and starts pumping it up and down in her fist as her tongue continues its assault on the head.

"Nggggh, think!" Justin grunts, wincing in concentration as he struggles to talk his way through the problem at...uh, hand. "Olde magick ritual resulting in an unintentional mystical summoning and the metaphysical manipulation of no-no parts. Which can only really mean one thing: obviously, like some kind of idiot, I screwed up the ritual by masturbating right next to the circle, and inadvertantly conjured a succubus..."

(Alex snorts again, a little louder this time, as her tongue traces a lazy figure-eight over the head of his cock. Succubus? Snkt, more like "suck till you bust".)

"Ahhh-hhh-hhh!" Justin exhales as Alex tightens her grip and starts stroking him even faster. (Because if he's still using big words like 'metaphysical' and 'inadvertantly', then she's obviously not working hard enough.) "OK, succubi, succubi...think about what you know about succubi. Specifically how you banish one. Let's see...um...Monster Hunter's Tactical Field Guide, chapter 8, page 93...I'll need three thorn apple seeds...a white hankerchief..."

Crouched down in front of him—and rather pointedly not on her knees, thank you very much, even though that would probably be more comfortable, because fuck all that subservient shit— Alex rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Seriously? Dork's fallen ass-backwards into a mystical blowjob—and pretty goddamn hot one, if she does say so herself—and he not only wants to stop it, but he's turning it into some kind of lame independent study project? Jesus Christ, does his giant brain just refuse to shut the fuck off, or what?

OK, so it's only her first time doing this. And yeah, she's pretty well gone out of her way to make it impossible for him to possibly know that it's even her doing it, but still...she's starting to take it just a little bit personally.

And so, determined to put any thought of stopping or banishing her out of his head, to make him just give in and go with it for once (twice) in his life, Alex closes her eyes, shifts her grip on him once again, and then guides his cock into her hot and ready mouth.

"OHHHHHHH!" Justin cries out in surprise, his hips bucking involuntarily as her soft lips slide over him. Alex gags a little and quickly pulls her head back, as the tip of his cock unexpectedly brushes against the little dangly-ball thing at the back of her throat. Whoops, so that's unpleasant. Blinking away the sudden moisture blurring her vision, she cautiously leans forward again, tentatively taking him deeper into her mouth as she sucks on his length.

Justin moans wordlessly as she devours him, his cock warm and throbbing and alive against her tongue and the insides of her hollowed-out cheeks. His eyes flutter closed, and he slowly lowers his arms until his palms are resting gently on either side of her head. He gasps at the surprise of making contact, his hands flinching away for a second before they hesitantly return, his fingers tangling themselves in the soft waves of her invisible hair. Encouraged by his reaction, feeling like she finally has his undivided attention, Alex lazily draws her mouth back up his shaft until only the very tip remains between her lips, then gradually lowers her head to engulf him all over again. All the while, she works her tongue back and forth against the smooth, paperthin skin lining the underside of his cock.

"Oh my God," Justin grunts. Which is both shocking and incredibly gratifying at the same time, because while he's been known to curse lightly on occasion, Justin _never_ takes the Lord's name in vein. His begins to pump his hips, gently this time, in time with the slow rise and fall of her mouth on him. His breath quickening, he allows his head to loll backwards, the expression on his face one of utter, passionate absorbtion in what she's doing to the most sensitive, intimate part of him. Alex feels a surge of power shoot through her, stronger than any magic she's ever experienced. In all the years they've struggled for dominance against one another, and for all the ways she's slyly manipulated him—both overtly, and in secret—Alex has never felt so...so utterly _in control_ of him.

And it's so fucking hot that she can't help but reach down between her thighs and start playing with herself, in a desperate attempt to soothe the burning, hollow ache that's building uncontrollably there. Forgetting herself, she moans softly around his cock as her fingertips brush the swollen nub of her clit, then part her slick folds to probe and tease the steamy threshold of her core. She momentarily releases her mouth's hold on Justin's member as she slips one slender finger in—then gasping passionately—before she resumes sucking it with a renewed fervor as she simultaneously pleasures herself.

She hasn't touched herself like this—hasn't dared to—since he last touched her like this. And now that he has touched her, she knows that her own fingers aren't quite enough. Not even with his cock in her mouth, totally beholden to her every movement, her every whim. She wants—needs—more.

And that's when she gets an idea.

Sliding her fingers back out of herself, she reaches up and slides her hand under the hem of his pale blue Oxford button-down, and the crisp white T-shirt he wears underneath. Again she's surprised, this time by the heat of his skin and ripple of his tight stomach muscles, quivering beneath her wet fingers as she slides her hand up his midriff towards his equally firm chest. Justin gasps and twitches against her tongue again as her fingertips brush against one of his nipples, before she flattens her palm against the hollow of his solar plexus and begins to push against him, firmly and insistently.

Flushed, Justin looks down and blinks at the sudden pressure on his chest in confusion.

"Are you—are you trying to tell me you want me on my back?" he asks, his voice so throaty and raspy that it threatens to bring her off right then and there. Aching with need, Alex gives an exaggerated nod beneath the fingers tangled in her hair, causing his cock to bob slowly up and down as it slides against her tongue, in and out of her mouth.

Justin lets out a shuddering breath, and swallows to work some saliva down his throat.

"And if I give you what I want, will you grant me the boon of proving my sister's honesty?"

Alex hesitates for a moment before she nods exaggeratedly again. Because it's not like she's lying exactly, right? Shit, if anything, this is the most honest she's been with him in days. Or herself, for that matter.

"Al-alright then," Justin says, his voice cracking, as he slowly lowers himself back towards the bed, leaning first on his hands, and then his elbows. "In exchange for proving my sister's innocence, I freely give you my own. Take it as you see fit, she-demon. Do with me whatever you will."

Then Justin finally lays all the way back against the bedspread, submitting himself fully to her. In a small voice he adds: "Just, uh, please be gentle?"

Gentle? Shyeah. Right.

Instead, Alex practically leaps up off the floor and pounces on him like an animal in heat. Straddling his midsection, the steamy dampness of her pussy staining his Oxford button down, she presses him down into the mattress with one hand on each of his shoulders, and covers his mouth with her own, attacking him with fierce, hungry kisses. His eyes bulge out of his head, his cry of surprise muffled as she forces her tongue into his mouth to wrestle with his. His hands reach up instinctively to grab her waist, then gradually slide down and around to cup and squeeze her buttocks, hesitantly testing their supple fullness, even as the tips of his ring fingers graze the moist, outermost edges of her dripping twat.

The tip of his cock barely brushes against her taint, tickling the sensitive skin between her pussy and her asshole, making her shiver. Exhilerating in the sensation, Alex breaks the kiss and raises up off him a little, pressing back and wiggling just enough to lightly play the head of his cock back and forth against her perinium, teasing them both, just inches from glory. The tips of her breasts bump over his nose and his lips as she rocks herself, and Justin raises his head to capture one nipple in his mouth, suckling on it eagerly, intensifying the empty, burning ache in her core. It would be so goddamned easy to just lean back back all the way, to press her hot and ready entrance against the blunt head of his magnificent cock until it slipped inside, and she'd fully impaled herself on it, burying it deep inside to fill her burning, aching emptiness. Fuck, but it would feel so _good_. Just the thought of it is enough to flood her pussy all over again.

But even as she starts to lean back, Justin's entire body stiffens beneath her, and it sends a jolt of icy-cold fear shooting through her veins. Mere centimeters from the hot and throbbing point of no return, Alex falters and leans forward again, changing her mind at the absolute last possible second from the moment of truth.

No. Not like this, with her invisible and him not knowing. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be honest. And goddamned if that isn't all-important to her, all of the sudden.

Instead, Alex quickly reverses position, the mattress bouncing beneath her as she turns around and re-straddles her brother, her invisible knees making twin depressions in the bedspread on either side of his head. Leaning forward on her elbows, she takes hold of the base of his cock once more, angling it upside-down into her waiting mouth. Justin groans in pleasure, only to have it end in a surprised and muffled "MMMPH!" as Alex then leans back on her haunches and presses her sopping-wet pussy onto his face. Sucking on him eagerly, hungrily, she begin rolling her hips and grinds herself into him, willing him to take the hint.

Fortunately, he does. In fact, as he is in all things, Justin proves to be a very quick study, even working with the handicap of her utter transparency. Lifting his head off the bed and craning his neck, he starts out by kissing and nuzzling the invisible mound of her vulva. Then, slowly and tentatively, he raises his arms off the bed and hooks is elbows under her thighs, bringing his hands towards his mouth, to explore gently with his fingers, working like a blind man to guage where everything is by touch alone. His fingertips probe the sodden edges of her slit, then spread her lips open oh-so-gingerly, exposing her hot and molten core to the lavish attention of his tongue. He drags the tip of it slowly up and down, back and forth, in a characteristically thorough examination of the unknown. She rewards him with a shuddering, wordless moan when it locates the slick entrance of her twat, burrowing into it to lap up her seeping wetness, then again with an even louder one after he slides it back down over burning nub of her clit. With a moist popping sound, Alex releases her hold on his cock to look over (through) her shoulder at him, just in time to catch the self-satisfied grin that spreads across his face as he realizes he's hit paydirt. It's quickly replaced by an expression of fierce determination as he spreads her open just a little bit farther, then sticks out his tongue and starts lapping at her feverishly, as though his very life depends on it. Determined, as ever, to give every bit as good as he gets.

Alex moans again, her hips bucking under his assault. Already she can feel an orgasm approaching, the delicious tension building deep within her core, faster and more intensely than she's ever experienced before. Resolved to bring Justin off before he can do it to her—because no way in hell does he get to be better than her at _this_, too—she turns her face back towards his cock, and takes it back into her mouth. Sheathing her lips with her teeth, she bobs her head up and down rapidly, loving the feel of him sliding back and forth against her tongue. Justin practically growls into her pussy in response, then escalates things by sliding first one finger all the way into her, then two, working them in and out of her hole as his tongue flutters over her clit. Alex squeals, then ups the anté herself, slipping her mouth off his cock and jerking it rapidly in her fist as she licks and sucks his ball. Then, remembering the exquisite feel of his cock rubbing against her taint, she decides to experiment, and plays her tongue over the hardened ridge just below his nutsack, and earns the loudest groan she's pulled out of him yet.

For several long seconds, the only sounds in the room are the frantic slurping of their mouths and the audible squish of his fingers plunging deep into her over and over and over again. They thrash and writhe frantically against each other, uncontrollably, mussing the carefully-made bed and spilling the photos that were spread across it to the floor. Each draws the other inexorably closer and closer to the brink of release, determined not to be the first to go over themselves. Then Justin moans urgently, the vibration of his tongue against her clit causing Alex to gasp. And they go hurtling over the edge together, clinging to one another, as Justin's cock erupts with spurt after spurt of hot, sticky cum that arcs into the air to spatter on her cheek and the side of her neck, even as Alex bursts like a thunderhead all over his face, practically drowning him in the process.

_"Oh, fuck!"_ she cries out as she rides out her orgasm, grinding hard against his tongue as wave after wave of it crashes over her._ "Oh, Justin!"_

And then Justin stops moving beneath her, even as one last, lingering squirt of mikly whiteness dribbles out the end of his cock and spills over the back of her hand. Alex sags on top of him, her forehead resting on his right thigh, one hand still wrapped around his softening member, his fingers still buried to the hilt inside her. They lie there like that for a moment, sweaty and gasping for breath, silent and utterly spent. And it's as nearly as perfect a moment as Alex has ever experienced in her young life.

Right up until Justin—once he's finally regained the power of speech—breaks the spell.

"Al-Alex?" he says, with a trembling voice. "Alex, is that you?"

Every muscle in Alex's body stills as her breath hitches in her throat, her eyes going wide as she realizes, too late, what she's done. Frozen, panic and adrenaline coursing through her, she quickly weighs her options. The criminal genius in her effortlessly spins and discards a series of excuses, stories, falsehoods and outright lies—one after the other, each more patently ridiculous than the last—until she finally comes to the conclusion that she really only has two choices, here: stay and admit the truth, or run.

So, of course, she runs. Because for Alex Russo, getting caught is never an option. And it turns out there _can_ be too much of a good thing after all, when that thing is the truth.


	8. Chapter 8

Justin grunts as she pushes herself up and off of him, and she winces at the way his fingers slid out of her as she propels herself off the bed. Her feet thudding against the carpet, she neatly steps around the circle of sea-salt this time, careful not to disturb it again, and hisses _"Go through, mow through"_ under her breath as she launches herself towards the mystically-locked door. And even though she doesn't have her wand in hand, and it really shouldn't work, the laws of physics and probability apparently decide that they've messed with her enough for one evening, and allow her to pass through the door as though it isn't even there

(Well, shit. Why the hell didn't she think of that before?)

Heels skidding on the hardwood floor as she exits into the hallway and makes a hard left. And though the thought of retreating to the safety of her own room is tempting, she bypasses it entirely, knowing it will be the first place Justin looks for her. Instead she hurls herself down the yellow spiral staircase as fast as her bare feet will carry her, through the living room and all the way down to the ground floor. She streaks invisibly through the still-empty Sub Station, right past Dad, Harper and Max, who are all lounging around Table 9. And even though she feels her cheeks burn as she bypasses them—naked and covered in her brother's spend as she is—none of them so much as look up, as they apparently explore the possibilities of an evening gown made entirely out of Twinkies, judging by the snippet of conversation she overhears as she ghosts into the kitchen and slips through the freezer door into the lair.

It's only once it closes heavily behind her that Alex finally allows herself to breathe again. Justin won't think to look for her in the lair. None of her family ever does, since she rarely comes in here without purpose, even tends to avoid it between wizard lessons, if only because there's no TV in here, and cell reception this close to the portal is for crap. Padding over to the workbench, she snatches up a dark blue cloth embroidered with golden stars and crescent moons—which could be some all powerful magical heirloom for all she knows, Merlin's hankerchief or some such shit—and uses it to wipe off Justin's still-warm semen, where it drips down her face and throat.

_"I'd ask how it was for you," she'd said wryly to him the other night, after he'd burst all over her hands, "but the answer's kind of all over me, isn't it?"_

_"Uh, yeah, sorry about that," he'd said sheepishly. "I know how gross you think it is."_

_Without raising her eyes, Alex had shrugged one shoulder and coyly smiled at the memory of how his climax had triggered her own. "Eh, maybe it's not so bad."_

Shaking her head, Alex whips the rag away from her in frustration, then crosses over to one of the bookshelves filled with magical brickabrack, and digs the case holding the titanium family wand out from where her dad thinks he's hidden it from her. Yeah, yeah, so she swore she'd never touch this thing again after the mess she'd made of things in Puerto Rico, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And it's not like this is even the worst thing she's done today. Or even in the last ten minutes, for that matter.

Taking the wand out of its padded case, she holds it up at shoulder-height, twirls it once through the air to cancel the invisibility spell, then a second time to retrieve her own wand and the pile of clothes from where she hid them beneath Justin's bed. They appear on the workbench before her, without the signature flash that normally accompanies magical teleportation. Just as she wanted, a testement to the power and control the titanium wand has over magic, the way it makes those pesky laws of physics and probability practically sit up and beg. Alex smiles grimly in relief. Now there's absolutely no evidence left that she'd ever been in Justin's room.

Except, y'know, for Justin's memory of having heard her call out his name in the throes of passion.

Alex slides her eyes over to the gleaming titanium wand, still held aloft in her hand. Once, with an idle wish, without even meaning to, she'd used it to change history so that her parents never met. It would be oh so easy to use it to _deliberately_ erase Justin's memory of everything that happened in his room this afternoon. Along with her own. And both of their memories of the other night, too.

Hell, why stop there? Why not just change history again, so that the other night never even happened? Or reorder all of reality so that whatever utterly fucked-up impulse they both gave into is completely expunged from both of them. Turn them into normal siblings with normal, sibling-like feelings for one another, instead of...whatever the fuck they are now.

Fix it so that Justin wouldn't be in love with her, as he pretty obviously is. And so that she wouldn't...wouldn't _love_ the idea of him being in love with her as much as she obviously does.

(Because that's all it is. Right?)

Alex stands there for what feels like a long time, still naked as the day she was born, staring at the wand in her hand until her eyes burn. Seconds slide into long minutes as inwardly debates with herself, weighing the consequences and probable outcomes of her actions for possibly the first time in her life. In an odd way, it makes her feel like Justin, because that's what Justin does, like, all the time. And thinking about that—about what Justin would do in her situation—is finally what seals the deal for her.

Nodding to herself, Alex makes up her mind. The family wand practically sings with power against the palm of her hand as she twirls it in a tight circle. The tip of it flares briefly in bright, neon pink...

...and then her iPod, earbuds, sketchbook and charcoal appear on the workbench in front of her, right next to her clothes.

Letting out a small sigh, Alex lowers the titanium wand and packs it back away in its case, then carefully stows the case back in its "hiding place" on the bookshelf. She quickly gets back into her clothes—grimacing at how cold and clammy her panties are, and using her own wand to dry both them and herself—then gathers up her iPod and sketchbook, carrying them over to her Dad's worn, brown recliner. She sits down and draws her legs up under her, plugs the earbuds into her ears, and fiddles with the iPod for a moment. Then, settling her sketchbook in her lap, she traces the charcoal back over the reverse S-curve she'd sketched on the page earlier, making it darker, then proceeds to start filling in all the other details she sees in her minds' eye.

It's just after five o'clock on a Tuesday night—look, we went over this already, just go with it, OK?—and although she's alone in a quiet room with no TV and no cell phone, listening to the same song over and over and over again on repeat, Alex Russo is far from bored. Her hand sweeps back and forth across the page, filling in all the details she sees in her mind's eye, working out all the thoughts and feelings she doesn't have words for. Reverberating in her ears, Fefe Dobson insists that—all evidence to the contrary—she's the one who's in control here. And as she puts the finishing touches on Justin's hand, and the guitar ramps back up into the chorus, Alex breaks into a smile.

—30—

* * *

><p><strong>AUTHOR'S NOTE, THE SECOND:<strong> Yeah, the ending's kind of ambiguous, I know...but then, so are the endings of _The Empire Strikes Back_ and _The Two Towers_. Which is my really roundabout, geeky way of telling you that we haven't seen the end of _Harmless Smut_ just yet. Hopefully it won't take me a year to get back to it, this time. Stay tuned. ;)

**BONUS CONTENT! BONUS CONTENT!:** Some of my earliest readers from the justin_alex community on LiveJournal may remember that this isn't the first time I've used the premise of Alex walking in on Justin getting off to photos of her. If you'd like to read the first (failed) attempt—the only story of mine that's never migrated from LJ to here—search for "_You-niversal Truth"_ on LiveJournal. The story's honestly not that great (it was only my second Jalex ever, and I kind of chickened out with it), but if you scroll down to the comments, you'll witness some fun interaction with the writer of the third-season WOWP episode on which it was based.


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